Talk:Yōji Itami/@comment-112.198.242.87-20150919233111
It's funny how people nowadays in the interwebs see protagonists doing anything other than beating/killing the crap out of an antagonist as cowardice or running. It makes it really obvious how many of us here don't know the weight of hurting other people in real life. While I do agree that there were times when Itami could've acted more as a stereotypical lead male in handling some situations, most of them were actually done differently either as comical transition or as a show of his character's wisdom to an extent with relation to his history, personality, and experiences. For example, he didn't argue with Yao back at the tavern scene with Rory, because explaining himself to a highly prejudiced outsider (prejudiced and uninformed enough to come barging in and barking at him despite the other people at the tavern seeing nothing wrong) will just lead to a troublesome and lengthy discussion + him having to explain about Rory who was clearly making the moves on him + it would lead to him embarrassing Yao then and there. Honestly, if it were me I would've explained regardless of the latter's embarrassment of her mistake in thinking Rory was a child. He didn't beat up the corrupt prince and instead ordered Kuribayashi to do it, because it's his job as a commander. As a commander, he can't show his subordinates that he's overly emotional (military training has a hand in that, I know because I have a dead gramps who was once in the force). Also, compared to Kuribayashi who has more mastery in CQC, he probably wouldn't be able to gauge how much he will end up beating the guy (I'll explain this next). Why he wouldn't be able to control himself if he did beat up the prince? There are two reasons. One, Itami grew up seeing domestic violence between his father and his mother. This gave him at least a little subconscious trauma (no, not those overly dramatic TV trauma attacks you see, but a mindset bias that if he were to hurt other people especially women, he would be doing the same thing his father did.). Especially so since some time later his mother snapped and accidentally killed his dad. She went into denial that she killed someone/her own husband because of this traumatic event (similar to Tuka's case with her father albeit they died differently: mom killed dad/dad got killed by dragon). When Itami forced her into facing reality (I assume it was during his teens) she burned herself alive, leaving to more trauma for him (thus leading him to stopping from forcibly making Tuka face the truth). This is a terribly deep ingrainment into his character which makes him evasive from conflict as long as his position allows. Two, it might not have been said, but Itami obviously remembers what happened to that kid at the Ginza incident from time to time. He is pained to know that a woman (like his mother) from that incident was taken as a slave by that prince and was "abused". This reminds him of his powerlessness regarding the two noted incidents of his past. IIRC he punched the guy once (which would be his way of showing his anger, but he refrains from further violence so as to remind himself that he is different from that guy and his father). This is actually linkable to a scientifically proven fact in psychology that a person loses his "resistance" in doing violent acts the more he does such acts. A prison guard who engages in torturing/hurting captives frequently tends to lose the reason/resistance in doing such things and thus ends up doing it excessively. At least, in that situation, as commander Itami handled himself well both physically and mentally, enough so that he can control not only himself but also Kuribayashi should she go overboard. About the dragon, take note that Itami is a normal human and that he is there to help, but isn't there to cause more trouble to the people there. They had to handle the dragon (despite the JSDF commander already saying "No" once to Yao's request for JSDF help) with a small renegade force, which including himself could just be thrown off as a soldier acting against orders should things get messed up and that country (which isn't part of the Empire) turns to Japan-Empire making that "an offensive against them" as a means to start war. Since his plan failed (FUBAR as a commenter below said - which IIRC is a military slang acronym for "Fucked Up Beyond Any Recognition" -yes, its an acronym/word), Itami had to retreat as dying there would be the same as running from the repercussions his plan's failure caused, and that death would be the same. Of course, I assume it's also because it would be better that he lived to fight another day with what he learned in that battle. Also, I don't know if it will help broaden understanding, but even firefighters are trained to run away from the face of fire, formulate a plan to extinguish it better, then to execute it. Just because a plan failed and you have to run doesn't mean you're already a coward. People who do that especially in real life military operations are idiots. You are in a different country doing covert ops. Your plan for the mission failed badly (got FUBAR). What do you do? Shoot at the enemy until your dying breath or retreat and report? If you die there, the government/military will have one more dead body to explain to your family and to the political attacks that will be coming from that foreign country, not to mention political enemies within your own country. You just ended up making more problems than you solved. If you returned with the information you gained with your loss, the military could learn more of what went wrong and why. How to do it better is part of that while you pay for your mistakes in repercussions (emotionally, officially, and what not). Since the one responsible for the dragon has a high possibility of being involved in that country's (or the empire's) political power struggle, he has no choice but not to shoot that person and instead worry about the others' safety instead. He did differently during the Italica Defense Incident and instead went in to help (even going so far as to request air support since he knew he had a reason the JSDF higher-ups would bite into). Heck, he threw his entire squad against the dragon during the first encounter just so the civillians could escape, despite already knowing they have expendable equipment and a disadvantage regarding numbers and information (it was an emergency-they were the ones attacked by surprise). All in all, I'd call him cool and respectable. Honestly, he looks young to me (to me he looks like a graduating college student after an overnight sleepless thesis session. Also, I have a chin beard like his, a number of facial lines from stress, and I'm only 25 this year). It's actually rare to find a protagonist as good as Itami is in terms of personality and psychological make-up without being presented as overly strong or dashingly savant (I'd call Kogami Shinya of PP, savant). He hides a lot behind his character, but all of that can be understood if you understood what you've read/watched from the series as a piece of actual information that requires understanding, and not some variation of the common stereotype story + slap in different setting + slap in stereotype character variations + slap in plot with OMG brain-wrecking twists. Even the simplest, most stupid stories have many reasons behind them which would give you better answers with a wider point of view and an open mind. This is no different.